Council pays £45,000 in compensation for damage caused by roads

Council pays £45,000 in compensation for damage caused by roads

DRIVERS and riders have been paid out a total of £45,000 in compensation by Bradford Council in the past two years for damage caused to vehicles due to road conditions.

The figures for April 2012 to March 2014 show that in total there has been almost 300 claims to the authority, with the vast majority of these relating to damage to cars due to potholes in the road surface.

However of the 300 claims, only a small portion were successful - only 12 per cent, or 34 claims.

The largest single claim relates to an incident in August 2012, where a car was damaged after hitting an unmarked traffic island, which resulted in a payout of £24,253.80.

The figures show that while the number of claims submitted decreased from 150 in 2012/13 to 144 the following year, the number of successful claims actually increased during the same time period, from 13 to 21 in 2013/14.

The majority of the claims relate to damage caused by potholes (195 claims), followed by other reasons (87), ice (nine) and highway work (three). The other types of damage include hitting debris in the road, speed humps, hitting a traffic island, raised ironworks and chippings.

Most of the claims related to cars, while other forms of transport listed include vans, motorbikes, a bike and a scooter.

The figures, which were made available following a Freedom of Information request, come as an announcement was made last month of £32 million in funding for Bradford to road maintenance and repairs, including fixing potholes in the next six years.

The Government funding is part of a £6 billion road maintenance fund for England, running from 2015 to 2021.

It follows a similar announcement in June last year of almost £1m for Bradford from a new pothole repair fund, enough to repair up to 17,000 potholes, according to the Department for Transport.

Councillor Val Slater, the Council's executive member for housing, planning and transport, welcomed the £32 million Government funding over the next six years but said the district needed even more cash to fix the pothole problem.

She said: "The extra Government funding is welcome.

"I don't think Bradford's roads are in any worse state than in any other major city or district in the UK. We have been patching things up.

"We have the money coming over in chunks over the next six years but I don't think we are getting sufficient funds. It will go some way but we need about £48 million.

"It would have been better if we had got the money in larger chunks in a smaller period.

"It is difficult to say how many of the potholes will be fixed by these funds. It depends on the size and depth of the potholes.

"We need to prioritise the roads that need doing the first, for instance the roads which are the most well used which have potholes.

"We will be asking the district's area committees to have their say towards local roads."

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